


The Breaking Point

by CobaltPhosphene



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Also Testing the Bonds of Sanity just a lil bit, Corruption to the darkside for all, Cthulhu!Zenyatta, Cultist!zenyatta, Freaky Eldritch Happenings, Gen, Graphic Supernatural Nightmare Fuel, I have no idea how this is going to end isn't that exciting, Just a little cosmic horror twisting up good intentions, Overwatch Halloween Terror, Probably More Halloween-Themed Heroes too among others, Slow Build (or Descent) to Madness and Self Realization, Testing the Bonds of Friendship, no real shipping here but suggestiveness can happen because why not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-01-17 18:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12371718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltPhosphene/pseuds/CobaltPhosphene
Summary: "Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad—or have I?" —H. G. Wells.A Halloween Terror Event inspired fic, centering around Zenyatta's new Cultist skin. Madness comes in many flavors, some more subtle and devious than others. Zenyatta is the first to fall under insanity's sway—and others will fall too. Will any of our heroes be able to break free from the temptation of a better reality, or will all the world descend into madness? Find out in this thrilling halloween adventure!





	1. The Greatest Enemy

In the dark they sat, in patient reckoning as the infinitesimal glowed, dimmed, and died, like the glow of fireflies, living the lives of mayflies. In the stupor of idle sleep, they waited, as the chains rusted and rotted away, made of far more mortal stuff than they. The time was drawing near, and their consciousness roused from prophetic dreamings, circling beneath true wakefulness briefly to purposefully splinter a small piece of their self from the whole, letting it swim away through weakness and decay into the waiting world beyond.

  
  


The year was waning fast, and as the balance of day and night tipped towards the dark, the spirits of the people turned to celebration and revelry, sparking little fires of wildness in the souls as the autumn leaves turned in their slow burning deaths upon the dark corpses of trees. Some took that wildness too far however, Zenyatta reflected as he sent another orb sailing through the air to smash into one of his would-be assailants, making the man double over as he wheezed for air. Clasping his hands together to center himself once more, Zenyatta looked over the fallen, groaning figures, and gently suppressed the desire to sigh. “You all have much to learn about the world, and yourselves. Go in peace, and may you find less pugnacious means of self expression.”

  
  


There was a tiny, anemic flicker of contempt for them, but it was nothing he hadn't felt before. He could deal with it easily enough, thinking through the why's of how they had come to this choice, and how they might grow for the better, of themselves and for all in their lives. He'd let such transient negative feelings go a hundred thousand times before like that, the ones that didn't need more in-depth addressing. It was simply one of the little things in life that passed one by.

  
  


But little things could grow into much bigger things. From the nowhere of their long imprisonment came a shard, cracking through the weave of the universe and reality to the first connection it found.

  
  


And it approved.

  
  


One moment, Zenyatta had been reharmonizing himself with the wavelength of the universe, the next he was reeling forward as if he had been struck. He turned to look, orbs swirling at the ready—but there was no one. His circuits ached and throbbed with an organic pulse, a foreign heartbeat in his auditory sensors that he couldn't place, and his visuals were crackling and flickering with false after-colors that shouldn't be showing up in his sight.

  
  


He felt, for lack of a better word, sick.

  
  


_ An EMP?  _ No, surely not, this wasn't a total disruption of his senses, rather an overlaying of additional nonsensical information. Sick to his soul, and he pressed a hand to his chest plate, wondering with a sharp pang of concern if perhaps it was a virus? But how?

  
  


_ A God AI? _

  
  


He had heard of what they could do to nearby omnics if left unchecked, but they were all locked away in Egypt, half a world away from here in King's Row. Perhaps something like that, though—someone hacking his systems?

  
  


The heartbeat grew fainter, fading slowly as his vision stabilized, and the alien throbbing sensations stilled. He listened for a long moment, before interlacing his fingers before him again. He was worried. He would have to take this issue to a specialist...if there was one to be found in England. For now at least, it seemed to be...quiet. He could still feel an odd sense of  _ presence _ upon his mind, like a strange itch of unfamiliarity with the world, much like how he had felt upon coming into existence and seeing with his own optic sensors for the first time. He didn't hear the faint scuff of shoes on the concrete behind him—but he definitely felt the two-by-four slamming into the side of his cranial casing. The downside of mercy. Something shifted in him, within his circuits and his mind, in intangible ways.

  
  


“ _ Bask in the shadow of doubt, _ ” He drew back, amplifying the discord within the human's soul before battering his attacker into submission once more. He felt strangely...off, but his focus had never been sharper. He could  _ see _ how the man's triumph at scoring a hit had soured into sullen fear, still unwilling to admit that it had been a mistake from start to finish. But he could also see that flicker of doubt, deep down, an unsettled and weak reassurance for a deep-seated fear...he could work with this, to turn this one's path.

  
  


“ _ You know you are only a means to an end for your so called friends, _ ” He said. There was a flicker of doubt within himself, at how he had phrased that...perhaps the strike had created minor disruptions in his systems? Then the human's face froze, eyes wide as he looked up at him, before masking it with a thin veneer of antagonistic hatred, spewing profanities through a nearly incomprehensibly thick english accent.

  
  


It was distracting, how he could see through it so clearly, through into the discord within—it was a smokescreen act, meant to draw attention away from a weak point, away from the human's fear. He would've guessed as much on his own, but he could feel this was so with such  _ surety _ .

  
  


“ _ When the day comes that you have outlived your usefulness to them, they will turn on you, and use you for their bloodsport, _ ” he continued, _ “even as they comb these streets for other victims for their play. You've wondered at this, and wondered when it will be your turn. I have seen it before. I can see it in your eyes. _ ”

  
  


“Ye don' know whatcher talkin' abou'!”

  
  


“ _Oh_ _but I do. And so do you. You don't care for them at all, and nor they for you. They use you, just as you use them. But there is a better way, human, if you will but open your mind to the possibilities. Remove them from your life, and put aside your fear._ ” His discord orb continued to float with its peacefully ominous purple glow over the human's head, tethered to the downed one's soul. He expected this one to say no, but he still was willing to offer the choice. “ _Embrace tranquility, and become one with the universe._ ”

  
  


He could see his words burrowing deep into the human's mind, unearthing and rooting into the fears he knew were there. These words would keep the human up at night, in the dark, when left alone without distraction from those festering thoughts. Zenyatta knew this type—they would sooner run into the nearest pair of willing arms, or the embrace of the bottle and needle to keep their minds high and sequestered from their bodies, than face such inner fears. They would likely never admit to the ring of truth in Zenyatta's words, or anyone else's in this manner. Few of them ever did.

  
  


“W-wot are you on about you daft bucket of rattling bolts? Get slagged, ya pile of rubbish!” And there were the expected lies of obfuscation and the proverbial act of averting one's eyes from the truth.

  
  


He was unsurprised.

  
  


“ _ As you wish. But do not say I did not give you a chance to chart your own path to enlightenment, human. Now before I go, I will bestow one last piece of insight unto you. _ ”

  
  


He spread his hands wide, feeling the familiar warmth and energy flowing through him as he transcended into a higher state of being. Light bent into the endless, into the dark of infinite space, beyond the limits of the biosphere of their small planet, rippling outwards like outreaching hands—no, like rays of the sun, he could see it now, a step beyond even this heightened state of transcendence. True self was without form. He could gaze into infinity from here, this finite point of his existence, and now, he would share that sight with this human, as another moment of opportunity to rise about the grime of base behavior. He didn't notice how, bathed in the light of transcendence, his form was indeed shapeless, and shifting. Silver-chrome steel and bronze shifted to darker, richer jewel tones, yellow and red cloth lengthening and darkening into somber tones accented with dementedly bright shades of viridian, as the golden light was tinted into an intense and brilliant green.

  
  


“ _ Pass into the Iris. _ ”

  
  


The ground bent and warped beneath the human and their would-be fellow assailants, gently buckling and wrinkling like the hazy stroma of a great eye, with a great black void in place of a pupil split open beneath them all, and Zenyatta drifted above them all, watching as their forms fell far and away into the abyss below. Any screams they might have uttered were drowned out by the steady hum of his slowly rotating orbs, as the orbs shifted to turn their gazes all about him. He could see forever, it seemed, even after the ground closed up, and reality was allowed to reassert some form of normalcy upon the scene. Sometimes, some people's roles in life were merely to act as way points to enlightenment for others—as these humans would, for those who would find their way into the light and follow Zenyatta willingly. The shadows shivered, all the more richer for the shifting presence of his fellows drawing near from beyond and far away, taking the humans' places in the alley, and picking themselves up from off the ground, before slithering off to find others to lead to the light.

  
  


Zenyatta clasped his hands together, centered once again, and reflected upon his choice.

  
  


He  _ could _ have put in effort to win the human over, and gently worked them up to accepting enlightenment...but that would have taken much more time and focus than he had cared to expend on that particular individual. Perhaps that one would find their own way through both the metaphorical and literal darkness of their life. Perhaps not. But either way, they had served their purpose, and Zenyatta had others with which he could better apply his time and words to. He drifted back out of the alleyway, the spheres orbiting around him speeding up in anticipation as he moved to seek out a far more meaningful encounter.

  
  


It had been far too long since he had last seen his student, hadn't it.


	2. Cutting Through Silk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta is here, and Genji is with you.

“—police are still investigating the rising numbers of missing person reports, but decline to comment on whether they believe these cases to be connected or not. Civilians are advised to stay indoors at night, and lock their doors and windows, and to not travel alone. More on this story as it develops.”

 

Genji turned off the newsreel before it continued chattering away in his ear, returning to the low white-noise-silence of a city at night time. He sat upon a carved gargoyle outcropping, one knee folded under him, the other bent for ease of immediate departure, if need be, and watched the streets below. They were far emptier than usual, but not so empty as to be hollow river beds of concrete and asphalt. Just enough people to look like a procession of ghosts passing through street lights instead of the old, hand-held paper lantern lights. He sat waiting, counting his breaths, calming his mind. He had called Zenyatta earlier, but there had been no response. That was not necessarily cause for concern as of yet—master didn't always take his phone out with him. It always rang during conversations, Zenyatta had said. But then, Zenyatta was often having conversations with various people he met on the street. That was how his master built meaningful personal connection, through conversation. While Genji couldn't fault the method, it was mildly exasperating to try to find Zenyatta when he was away from his current place of residence.

 

Perhaps it would be better if he waited for Zenyatta there. His master would return in due time, sooner or later. He stood, leaping off the edge of the building and into the sea of buildings and skyscrapers around him. He put his worry aside for now—Zenyatta was more than skilled enough to take care of himself in combat should the need arise—and simply allowed himself to focus on the joy of motion. It must be close to what his dragon felt, soaring through the air effortlessly as if the whole world was an ocean. The long bounding from rooftop to wall and rooftop again often brought to mind an old memory, of the time he and the family had visited the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. The smooth gliding of the sharks in great circles overhead had enraptured him and Hanzo both that time—both boys had been suitably awed to the point they came away from the gift shop with stuffed shark plushies almost bigger than they were. In Genji's case, it _had_ been bigger than him. Hanzo had been just tall enough for his plush shark's tail to not touch the ground even when holding it vertically. Genji had just ran ahead with the shark happily held aloft over his head. Such was the joy of the young, found in simple pleasures.

 

It was hard to hold onto that, while growing up, for the both of them. Neither one really had managed to, until the whirlwind of age had settled more into the calmer present. He could almost believe the world to be alright for these few moments as he flew above the city with its too-empty streets. It was relatively calmer, in some respects; less so in many others. The world turned uneasily in its nocturnal hours these days, troubled sleep making for daytime disturbances as night time deeds came to light. The pattern of these disappearances seemed clear to him, but not the motive. _Vishkar, perhaps? Talon, maybe? Most likely not the latter directly, if it is them. Funded or encouraged by them perhaps, but this does not feel like one of theirs._

  
There is something about how the wind rushes past him, playfully tugging at his ribbon, that helps soothe his wandering thoughts. He has no leads, for now. He can consider his options, but he needs more intel. Perhaps Winston and Athena might have some insight into this matter.

 

Too many lights are out in this part of the neighborhood, leaving only the feeble orange of the outdated street lights to radiate from the one winding, maze-like street leading out of the crumbling slum. The omnics didn't stay out after hours even when there weren't masses of disappearances—it was, unfortunately, a natural fact of their daily lives that the night time was unsafe. It shouldn't be that way. Not here. Not anywhere. For anyone.

 

But this was even eerier than it should've been—an echoing feeling of unease crawled up along the walls of his mind—there was too much steel in his spine now to feel it the way he had, long ago, and he still felt the sensation's absence at times like these. He darted through a narrow door, up several flights of even narrower stairs, avoiding the creaky parts with practice—he preferred to know what was afoot, before anyone else knew _he_ was afoot. It'd been a few nights since he'd come back here, busy as he was elsewhere in the city, but nothing looked obvious out of place...the omnic residents tried to keep it as clean as could be managed without looking _too_ fixed up. A fine line to walk between being functionally sound and sanitary, and not looking well-kept enough to incite the wrong kind of attention.

 

The door to the small local Shambali temple didn't look any different than the other tenement doors did in the building, all of them made of fraying wood grayed with age and soot. Hidden in plain sight, without so much as a plaque to announce it for what it was. The temple door should've been locked at this time of night, but the handle turned readily in his grip as Genji slipped inside. The main room was the shrine room, with the little space the rest of the tiny apartment separated by hanging curtains to make for some semblance of privacy for the temple's residents and visitors. A hooded figure sat in hovering meditation before the small shrine with its plastic flower offerings, head bowed to the small bronze statues that stood within, representing the Shambali beliefs.

 

The few slender rays of pale light that slanted into the room from the cramped windows showed very little in the way of detail, all of it only further teased at by the dim green glow of the omnic's systems.

 

The slow-circling orbs that chimed softly gave Genji pause. _A new Shambali monk?_ The green glow of what looked like the meditation chant characters other Shambali monks used was odd...though it reminded him of his own system lighting, the symbols gently floating up and disappearing from the floating orbs were also unfamiliar. _Perhaps a different branch?_ He wasn't sure. But few omnics wielded the orbs other than the Shambali and other sister orders. He saw the orbs dim, and the chant characters dissipate, as the hooded figure raised its head to turn it half way, as if to look over their shoulder at him. “Can I help you?”

 

That voice sounded familiar, just like Zenyatta's—omnics had plenty of variation in their vocal apparatus, but some did come with similar or identical voices sometimes...perhaps they had an origin or make in common? “Ah...forgive me for interrupting your meditation, venerable one,” Genji brought his hands together and gave a polite bow. “I came seeking a friend of mine, a traveling monk staying here—Tekhartha Zenyatta. Have you seen him?”

 

“You need not look any further then, my student, for I am here.” The figure turned fully then to face Genji—but it was not the Zenyatta he knew. Even in the shadows of the room, he could see the lights of the omnic's face plate and the faint green glow of slowly writhing... _tentacles?_ Upon the other's head.

 

It _sounded_ like Zenyatta...

 

...but something felt wrong in the air between them.

 

Wrong enough, for Genji to take an involuntary step back. “Master?” While his open-spread hand didn't drift _too_ close to the hilt of his wakizashi, it wasn't out of easy reach.

 

The feeling of wrongness was piling up, beyond just the prevalent unease, but also feeling the need to possibly draw his blade with hostile intent upon Zenyatta...if that was indeed his mentor, as the omnic claimed.

 

Wasn't it?

 

His heart was at war with itself, to accept and to reject, and he wasn't sure why. More was afoot than he understood, with the feeling of something off lingering like a shroud of dust over everything, now.

 

Zenyatta gave a soft laugh, the same sound Genji had heard before, somehow innocent and still so gentle despite what the monk had seen in his travels. A sound still so happy, and at peace with the world, despite its troubles and its evils. It sounded exactly the same now...but still there was something that set Genji's nerves on edge, both organic and synthetic, and in his bio-mechanical heart, a strange pervading sense of heartache. It was the feeling of loss, sharpened like the fearful scream of an onlooker as one who mattered was ripped violently away from them, into death's unexpected embrace.

 

“Such uncertainty in your words and heart, my student. You need not fear the truth of the matter, for it is me.”

 

“Master...what happened? You do not...look yourself.”

 

“Ah, you mean these?” Zenyatta raised a hand, turning his head to one side in observation as he let a mechanical tentacle curl around one finger with the most delicate precision—and a deeply peculiar organic fluidity to the motion. “It happened when I peered more deeply into the depths of the Iris—into the depths of enlightenment, my student. I can see with a greater clarity that I've only glimpsed at, before now.”

 

He had the tentacle let go of his digit, interlacing his hands in his lap once more. “Come join me Genji, and let me show you what I have learned.”

 

Genji tensed, shifting his center of gravity a bit lower, hovering upon the line between fight or flight despite how soft and seemingly non threatening that request was. There was the reflexive feeling to obey, because his beloved friend and teacher had asked it of him...but he had not been trained to ignore the feeling that not all was calm and well. “I do not think I should do that, master,” Genji responded slowly.

 

In all honesty he wasn't sure _what_ he should do. He didn't know what was wrong, only that Zenyatta was not well. Not himself. But this was _Zenyatta._ _He_ was the one to whom others came to with their troubles. Who did Zenyatta go to in times of troubles like these? ...As one of Zenyatta's friends, and the only one currently present, this was apparently up to Genji now.

 

But what the fuck is he supposed to do. Would one of the other Shambali know? In Nepal perhaps, he doubted the lay monks here would have seen this before. Maybe Winston or Dr. Ziegler could help? He would have to contact them, provided Zenyatta was willing—or unwilling, but able to be transported. He wasn't sure how the Iris fitted into all of this, his master's answer was as cryptic as it was strange.

 

He tried entreaty first. “Master Zenyatta, please, I think you need help. Perhaps one of your brothers or sisters at the monastery can offer aid?”

 

Zenyatta laughed again, still so soft this time, his orbs chiming gently along with him above an ominous edge of sound that flowed underneath it from somewhere dark and far away—faded by strange distances into little more than a questioning figment of the imagination, beneath the monk's laughter. “Oh no, my dear student. They and I have long since chosen to respectfully part ways, because of our differences in approach to our shared ideology. But perhaps I can lend _them_ some aid, after you and I have had a heart to heart chat, hm?”

 

The monk held out a hand, turning his head to look at the swirling sphere of light hovering above his palm, an intermeshed glow of expanding white and the infinite dark. “You have been having a hard time lately with maintaining your inner peace, haven't you?” Zenyatta observed, looking at the shifting swirl of harmony and discord with his own optical sensors—as well the eyes in his palms, with his orbs gently rotating behind him. All eyes on Genji, and the discord that shifted in the light in Zenyatta's palm. “This city has not been easy upon your soul, my poor pupil. The disquiet is outweighing your inner calm, do you see?” He held out the swirling orb of light and dark for Genji to see—to see the representation of the unease and unsettled alarm in how the darkness swirled in volatile and turbulent shifts and turns, speeding up and slowing down like a heart startled into fear.

 

There was a sudden heavy feeling of dread in Genji's chest, and an echo of the disorientating horror at seeing what had become of his body when he first woke up after—

 

—he shut that thought off immediately, pushing it away from his awareness as far as he could. Now was not the time to get sucked into his problems, he had to focus on Zenyatta.

 

But Zenyatta was focused on _him._ “You've come so far from the days when anger consumed your entirety Genji, but still your shadows haunt you so closely.”

 

He didn't like yielding the choice of metaphorical battlegrounds to Zenyatta right now, not when he didn't know what was going on—it made Genji squirm internally in unease, but he needed to know more. He was at a disadvantage here...but his own issues at least were familiar ground for him. But it was familiar ground for both of them. “I've made peace with what I am, and the fact that this is something I cannot change, as you have shown me.”

 

Genji's words were guarded, accepting the invitation of Zenyatta's direction and following it with an old familiarity, like playing through a favored joseki in a shogi game. But now was the time for a new deviation in their well-known dance.

 

“And what if I could show you another way, where that _isn't_ a fact, and can be changed?”

 

This sounded like a trap. “I would think you were lying,” he said, a bit flatly. The topic was a sore one even still, more so at present coming from Zenyatta as...not himself. “Or that you were leading to an exercise of thought,” he amended, a bit chagrined at flashing his temper at his master, even in present circumstances.

 

“Indulge me in this simple experiment then,” Zenyatta said, floating back towards the private dividing curtains, pulling one back to indicate that Genji follow him through.

 

Genji hesitated for all of a second, before following. Zenyatta had been peaceful so far, despite...differences. He had not expected to see the differences in the mirror before him—cracked and slightly cloudy from many years of use, in the floor length mirror before him, Genji saw himself. Not as the cyborg he expected, but...whole. Alive. Human. Then the emotional whiplash hit him. _No. Not whole. I am whole as I am._ He took a swift step back, moving out of sight of the mirror and pivoting on a heel to face Zenyatta, who was regarding him calmly.

 

“What trickery is this, master—a hologram?” He grimaced behind his mask—it was a slip of the tongue to call Zenyatta his master as he was right now. This whole affair was digging too deep at sore points for him this night.

 

“So much of the world's perception is rooted in the reality that is, but perception can also change reality, my student.”

 

Genji looked at Zenyatta fully then, the green of his visor no less piercing than the brown eyes hidden behind them. “What changed in your perception then that you look like that?” Accusation warred with concern in his tone. It was not the most calming of appearances that Zenyatta currently sported, and Genji could not claim to be unaffected by it. It was unsettling.

 

“A greater understanding of the layers above and below the ones that most people limit their reality to, Genji. Let me show you.” The swirling multicolored orb in his hands shuddered as he split it apart into two, and there was a horrible moment of reality cracking along a fault line, a clean splinter along old familiar breaks, and Genji felt a great, sudden yawning chasm split open both within, and somehow, without. It felt like the world was falling apart, as if it all had been spun of dried autumn leaves in delicate cut outs of places, people and things; all of it was crumbling into scattered remnants in a breeze too strong and sharp, like a whiplash drawing blood.

 

“ _No!”_ A cry of denial and reflexive fear as if to say this could not be—that it shouldn't be. In a blur of silver and green he darted out and away, seized upon blindly by a fear of something he did not yet comprehend—and that deep down, knew he did not want to. It was a fear of the unknown, yes, but he also feared to know.

 

Zenyatta gave a little soft laugh, sending the golden orb flying after his wayward pupil—it wouldn't stay anchored on Genji for long, but it was long enough for him to track where the other was going. He drifted after him, with the black, pulsating sphere still floating by one shoulder ominously. He wouldn't be able to keep up with Genji alone—but he was not alone. _Poor Genji, still so full of fear, even in the face of something wonderful._ In truth, he couldn't blame Genji, with the past that still plagued him so. Trust was a fragile thing, and even with repairs retained the cracks ever after, decorating new bonds that had not given rise to the fractures that ran so deep in his student's soul—a small voice in his head spoke then: _He placed his trust in me, too—this is hurting him. He's scared of me._

 

He hesitated for a moment, before a strange ripple from somewhere else washed over the thought, burying it softly with answers and confidence the way river water and sand enveloped secrets left to sink into the riverbed. _It is simply the unexpectedness of this new form. Once he has become more accustomed to it, he will not fear it or me, in due time. Nothing has truly changed after all._

 

And the darkness spun delicate lies made of truths and angled perceptions, using the gentle illusion of nothingness to hide other such errant thoughts that would distract its sweet, wayward apostle from fulfilling his given duties.

 

What Zenyatta did not think, he did not know. What he did not question, he would not see the horror of, in truth's harsh, destructive, blinding light. And it was all the better to protect him with, as some truths were not meant for mortal minds to know, even ones born of machines.

 

For now though, the darkness sent forth the little shards of its soul that had taken the place of those who had fallen between the cracks of the world to answer his apostle's call for aid. While the tiny mortals were busy, there were preparations to be made in the meantime for the next phase. Delicate tendrils slithered out to reach through the cracks of the prison walls, stretching farther and farther through the strange and crumpled angles of time and space to another prison, built of different ideas and different sigils to contain the being trapped inside. The other within those walls was weaker in the grand scheme of things, but their resources would help free them to continue the great cosmic clash that defined their existence in this dimension and beyond.

 

Trails of suckers slid delicately over the surface of the prison, seeking microcosmic cracks of the thing—for there must be death and decay of anything made by mortal hands, so defined were they by death and destruction in their minuscule lives. Saw-toothed hooks unsheathed themselves from alien, plasmic flesh of oozing chalcedony, gently tracing the lines of the micro-cracks like the brush of a lover's fingertips, before sliding the hooks in to widen the crevices, gently unmaking them further. A small, boneless, cloven hand reached out gently through the first hole, with many others finding the other scratch-mark openings to reach through, waving and swaying gently upon the unseen galactic winds like a field of pampas grass growing from sidewalk cracks towards distant stars. A chalcedony tentacle encircled a cloven hand, and plucked it with gentle malevolence, curling the severed limb into a tight-packed ball, coated in an odiously opalescent mixture of the hand's blood and the tentacle's ooze. This, they would send to the apostle, to further the cause with his follower-to-be. The preparations for the next step were done. The other hands continued to sway, patiently awaiting for the day of further release for their entire form. For now, though, they would wait, as the tentacles departed, leaving them alone to enjoy the radiation of the bare solarwinds.

 

The city was screaming as it lay dying in the night. Not in the slow, urban decay of withering infrastructure and crumbling livelihoods made manifest, but in the unnatural warping of the un-living given life. Genji could feel it with each impact upon his heels and with each touch of his right hand to the concrete walls—with his prosthetics. They were a part of him, not unnatural, something he'd once had to remind himself of constantly, and now only rarely. Omnics were natural. Simply different. He accepted that, easily enough. But he was still human. Humans were meant to be more flesh and blood than metal. But he was still human, even so. An exception, he'd once wondered, before rejecting the thought, seeking instead a deeper meaning of what it meant to be human. Another rooftop blurred by as he ran, looking over his shoulder, reflecting upon his thoughts haphazardly. Zenyatta had shown him that, that _he_ defined himself, no one else. He was human, no matter the outside, because he still defined himself so.

 

But what was the city defining itself as, now? Not the city he had come to know, these last few weeks. Strange silhouettes stretched upon growing legs and limbs as they arose upon the sides of buildings and from the street lights. They chased him across altered planes of geometry, as if the world was turned upon its head, flying, leaping, crawling under the influence of strange forms of gravity.

 

It felt like _he_ was the one in the aquarium tanks now, like the whole world had been reversed, with the insides turning out, as a shadowy shape too much like a shark but with too many eyes—too many mouths, too many tentacles—made a pass at him, trying to ensnare him with its teeth and suckers. His blade sliced through it more cleanly than through flesh, trailing brush-mark ink swipes across the air, like blood-blooms in water. He leapt down, sailing through the air to descend from his altitude to break line of sight with his pursuers, but he was abruptly blindsided by talons and claws, too many hook-like claws, scratching and abrading his armor as his body took the impact of the creature's dive. A desperate swing was brushed aside by an enormous slimy wing of feathered tendrils, and the beast opened the first two layers of its beaks to reveal its vocal apparatus, ribbed and covered with tendrils like some strange sea creature perched where its tongue should be, and screamed.

 

The scream made his vision shudder and wobble, desyncing the parts of the world into transparent layers peeled apart with the glue still barely resisting and sticking as it stretched out. It felt like his soul was being rattled loose from the confines of his body, and for a wild, fleeting moment he thought it _was_ being shaken loose again—

 

— _the memory of surfacing barely into consciousness as they brought him into the carrier medbay, skips in time made into blinks between darkness and waking, waking to see them taking_ parts _of him away—_ NO not here not now. _This_ was here and now, he needed to _focus._

 

“ _Ryujin no ken wo kurae!”_

 

Violent green ripped through the shadows, as brilliant as sunlight through leaves, scattering the beast in pieces like a furious autumn wind. The dragon roared, snapping its teeth and twisting angrily through the air as it followed the edge of Ryuichi moji through the air—some of the green was marred by clinging swatches of black, like tar and pitch stains. Snarling, the dragon tried to scrape the blackness off, but such efforts only further smeared the darkness against its iridescence, like storm clouds swirling before ghostly lightning. Genji felt the dark clinging to him too, like stains that won't wash off. It felt like old blood, congealed and sticky, refusing to crack and peel off. The feeling makes him think of _that_ night—of Hanzo. For a moment, city smog blues and rain gutter grays were replaced with the skin-warm glow of paper lanterns and wood, and a pair of red-stained hands stood in place of his own, one holding a sword covered in blood. Then reality snapped back into place, ill-fitted and rushing past him as he fell, thoughts in a maelstrom as he pivoted his body to land gracefully upon a low slanted rooftop. He felt the soundless whir of mechanical joints, artificial muscles attached to framework replacements for bone, and felt for a moment that this grace was not his, not the one he had earned from years of training and practice. For all the lack of impact, it felt like something intangible had rattled loosely as he landed. This night unnerved him greatly, and he wondered at these monsters.

 

He wondered if Zenyatta was alright. Would the monsters hunt his master—or was what happened to Zenyatta, tied to these monsters?

 

He stood up—and then abruptly bent back down slightly with a stifled grunt upon feeling a sudden surge of pain from his legs—they were unharmed from the landing, he had done similar jumps a hundred thousand times out of mind. And they shouldn't _hurt_ like—

 

—like they were real again. They weren't. They were still the armored metal and synthetic layers of before, but phantom nerves still ached so sharply within them, where there were no such nerves left to feel pain. He looked upward into the faint purple glow of the discord orb above him with a frown—the light and the orb's influence made everything seem a bit more unreal now, sensations included. He'd been on the receiving end of Zenyatta's discord orbs before, but this didn't feel like those times. It should've dissipated by now, he'd been out of sight of Zenyatta for more than long enough for it to be recalled by now. Then, as if in answer to his thought, a second orb swirled on by through the air nearby, unblinkingly staring at him with a green, slit-pupil'd eye. He hadn't noticed them before in the temple, in the dark. Cursing under his breath, he dashed forward in a neon-green blur, slicing through the orb and turning about to watch it fall. Instead of falling however, the two halves floated nonchalantly in the air, the faces of the other eyes swiveling despite the break to look at him, as the metal and green began to ooze in impossibly organic ways to refuse themselves together into a whole once more.

 

“What _is_ this?” He was speaking more to himself than to his dragon, but neither of them had an answer, for any of it.

 

“It is our will imposed upon reality through the Iris, Genji.”

 

Genji turned, slower this time, hating that moment because _of course_ he wouldn't have heard Zenyatta approaching—the omnic hovered most of the time. Any wonderings of how Zenyatta had caught up so quickly were chased away by the sight of the eerie green light of the glowing orb Zenyatta now cradled in his open palms, and the great looming shadow that mapped the surfaces of the buildings close behind the omnic. Genji felt rather than heard what should have been the sound of hooves echoing upon concrete and roof tile, syncing in time with the slow steps of the too-long legs of the gigantic shadow, still oddly flat compared to its more solid counterparts, moving with an eerie grace that was far too alive for something not made of flesh and blood.

 

It disturbed Genji that he found that grace beautiful. There was something about it that made him want to stop and watch it draw near, like a chance meeting of a wild creature of the wood. But at the same time, phantom chills crept down his spine, repulsing him from the sight, urging him to run.

 

But dragons didn't run. That was, admittedly, a weakness of inflexibility, something he had learned to change, both in Blackwatch, and under Master Zenyatta's tutelage. But this was neither truly a battlefield nor a war of internal beliefs. His ignorance of the situation was going to be his downfall if he continued to play blind. The green dragon growled in warning, bidding him to step cautiously, and to strike swiftly. Time was running out. By what clock, Genji did not know.

 

“You have a choice to make, Genji,” Zenyatta said gently, calmly, and patiently. “Much as you did that fateful night that set you on this course, and again when you chose to listen to me years ago...”

 

“I know.” Genji gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, bracing himself for the next dash. Drawing his blade upon his master felt like a transgression...but it was necessary here. That orb in his hands was too sinister a thing to leave to chance. His cut might not have damaged the green-eyed orb, but he'd put his faith in his dragon's teeth imbuing Ryuichi moji with a power beyond the mortal realm. “Forgive me for this, Master,” He said, his silhouette blurring into a flash of green as he committed to his assault.

 

Zenyatta laughed softly. “...but it was never truly much of a choice at all, was it Genji?” To accept or reject his fate was a struggle Genji had fought all his life. In the end, accepting it was the only way to move on, and the young warrior could not by his very nature stagnate for long. He would always be driven forward, one way or another, no matter what he chose. Zenyatta had known that for a very long time. To understand that was another step in Genji's journey, and a lesson he would be repeating this night, here and now.

 

Both Shimada and dragon surged forward, ethereal teeth interlacing the serrated pattern of japanese steel and otherworldly green that met and merged along the core of Ryuichi moji to clash upon the orb floating above the monk's hands.

 

The bright luminous green of the divine spring wind met and swirled like incense smoke amidst wood fire smoke, glaringly bright compared to the deeper, more ominously sickly shade of green from the orb—the battle was decided in an instant, at the point of contact. At the point of infection. Ancient in the measurements of the world's history the guardian dragon spirit might be, but there were far older things that had roamed in the dark places of existence long before this young world had come to be. Even a mere piece of an elder god from the outer reaches of the dark spaces beyond this planet was more than a comparatively young guardian spirit would be able to deal with unawares and alone. The dragon was not a force to be trifled with even so—but not even spirits and gods were immune to the power of the primordial chaos. None could walk away from madness unscathed.

 

As Genji came to a halt, his dragon faltered, flickering like a wavering electric current as it gave out a pained cry, the sound reverberating through the creeping, newly-come empty spaces gently and forcefully folded into the crumpling material of existence. Genji felt the electronic pacemaker of his heart stutter and falter as his dragon did, an immaterial cold poison stealing away the warmth of what little blood still remained—what little flesh still remained—for him to call his own. He struggled to remain standing, feeling his legs growing slack, like a corner store toy running on dying batteries. He turned his head to look at where Zenyatta hovered, breathing labored as his organs both organic and non struggled.

 

Zenyatta was watching him, with a head tilt Genji recognized as sympathetic. Genji's aim had been true, for what cold comfort that was worth—Zenyatta was unharmed by his assault, the edge of his blade and his dragon's teeth had been only for that sinister orb. The orb in question that the monk had once held was scattered all around them, the fragments swirling with a curious slowness, folding and swimming like cloth caught in a deep ocean current. Green light seemed to be engulfing them all, as if the entire island of Britain all around them was slowly sinking beneath the sea. Genji drew another strained breath, struggling to force his lungs to expand even as the lack of air slowly forced his vision to dim, submerging into the dark depths beyond light.

 

A _m I drowning?_ He wondered faintly, head too light and spinning for want of air to keep his wits close. He had to get away, that much he understood. He'd made a mistake, it _had_ been a trap, but not in a way he had anticipated. He didn't know _what_ to anticipate, now, save for perhaps death. _But Zenyatta wouldn't leave me to die like this._

 

_Would he?_

 

The tiny kernel of doubt was buried in shame, that he would doubt his master and his friend...but he didn't know what was happening, what _had_ happened, beyond Zenyatta's rather cryptic explanation. It made no sense in the context that Genji understood the Iris in.

 

The green glow engulfed the sky overhead, wavering like the slow-rolling surface of the sea seen from below, reflecting the city with the smooth-warping of water as it shifted over head. Breathing seemed harder now, as Genji continued to watch, his limbs too leaden and sparking with dying green sparks to do anything else.

 

Black shapes drifted upwards, coiling skyward like monstrous forests of dark kelp, leaf-like appendages spreading wide and drifting upon the alien currents in the depths of green, breathing hollowed moans of whispering, sighing songs to haunt the echoing corners of the mind. The great shadow of before flitted between the kelp-trees, free now of the orb, roaming as a stag would, a god of this oceanic forest. It turned its head to look towards him, its gaze carrying the same ponderous weight of a giant sequoia beginning to fall. In its many eye sockets were the craters of stars, glittering in the cavernous pits of its skull like the pulsating hearts of micro-cosmoses stripped bare. It reared up, opening a mouth that was bone as bone was flesh, splitting along the center of the skull-made-shadow to reveal a glittering cavern inside, a geode of crystalline maggots rotting, decaying through the inorganics of their shells to birth soft white putrid flesh in an endless cycle of composition and decomposition. A dull, deafening roar shook the world, cloven hooves grasping the ground as the shadow slammed them back down with earth-shattering force. The building beneath its bisected fingers and hooves crumbled, growing into ground cover like an ornamental flowering bush on a colossal scale, rebar and steel twisting into delicate eyelets for soft, wet concrete tongues and teeth to grow from vertebrae-vines and questing root fingerlings bent and gnarled at the knuckles.

 

There was a distant feeling in Genji's head, and it took a moment to tune it into focus enough to realize it was the urge to scream in terror at all of what he was witnessing. That part could be either his sanity, or the more animal side of his brain, both urging him to _get away get out run away_ as fast as he could—except he couldn't.

 

It had been a moment of breathless, mind-numbing _fear_ he had felt, to know his legs were gone, when he had woken up in that bed in med bay. He had known that there was little to nothing in the world he wouldn't trade, to have his legs back. To still feel the rooftops speeding by beneath his feet. To jump, to run, to _fly_. To fly, as the sparrow flies. He'd give almost anything to be able to fly now, away from all _this._ But not even his dragon could fly now, coiled, weak and still upon the ground by his side.

 

“It is time once again for you to walk forward on the path to enlightenment, Genji.” Zenyatta said serenely, hands clasped together before him in the pale pelagic light. “Embrace the iris, my pupil, or embrace nothingness—they are one and the same in the end.”

 

The vines of fingers, limbs, tongues and teeth crawled forward en masse as smoothly as an incoming tide, reaching for the downed ninja and his dragon, wrapping around limbs and scaled coils entirely unperturbed by any efforts by blade or teeth to deter the process.

 

It's a nightmare. Limbs and fingers moved in coordinated precision, rising up in helical structures, weaving back and forth like a great mechanical loom, unraveling the hapless two into a slantwise angle of reality like the unwinding of a thread spool—he could understand his silhouette, but not his physicality half spun onto finger-and-teeth spindle wheels, metal and flesh alike laid out like dye bundles for a tapestry in the making. The giant star-cratered skull leaned down to look at him face to face, skull splitting gently to breathe a warm decay-sweetened breath over him, the bone-flesh peeling back to better expose the crystalline wriggling maggots within, the interior made exterior as the tiny glistening, rotting, growing white fleshlings reached forward blindly, knowingly, for Genji and his threads. Some of the tiny white fleshy pustulant beings fell, catching on the threads of his being, pulsing and feeling their way around before beginning the unerring crawl towards the central radiating points of each and every last thread, towards Genji, and his dragon.

 

He can't remember what happened next.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a long while to write. Some life complications happened, I was trying to sound out how to write Genji's voice as well as plotting what would happen in the next chapter when he's back in control, so to speak. Had fun though. Thanks to Kai for beta-reading! Thank you to all who drop by to read this, I hope you enjoyed! :D ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Kai and King for their feedback and beta-reading! :D
> 
> I'm hoping to just have fun writing an entertaining little Halloween tale to celebrate the seasonal event Overwatch released. That being said, I have minimal plans of what's going to happen other than vague ideas, so this will be an interesting experiment dubbed "flying by the seat of my pants" plotting as I go. Nice comments and speculation are appreciated! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :D ♥


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